From HORROR (The Wildside Press, John Gregory Betancourt, ed.) #1, January 1994. HORROR ceased publication in 1995.

LOST SOULS, her first novel, was published by Delacorte Abyss in 1992, the line's first hardcover. It is currently a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate and was nominated for a Lambda Award for best first novel. Her second novel, DRAWING BLOOD, will be published by Abyss in November 1993. 

NANCY KILPATRICK FOR HORROR: Is Poppy Z. Brite your real name? 

PZB: Yes, Poppy Z. Brite is my real name. Anyone who "thinks" they know otherwise is wrong - rumors abound on this matter! 

HORROR: You were born in New Orleans, moved to Chapel Hill, NC when you were six, spent two months at the University of North Carolina before you dropped out to work on LOST SOULS and, after a brief stint in Athens, Georgia have returned to New Orleans. Why did you move back? 

PZB: I missed it. 

HORROR: The South figures prominently in your writing. 

PZB: Having been a writer all my life, and never having lived outside the South - though I have travelled as much as possible and mean to continue - I guess I would have to call myself a Southern writer. I am very glad of the time I spent in North Carolina and Georgia, because however insane and magical New Orleans may be, it isn't exactly the South. It is something else, some dimension unto itself. I mean, you can't get sweetened iced tea in the restaurants, and half the natives have something almost indistinguishable from a Brooklyn accent. 

We use the lives have. I want to write about every place I ever go, some way or another. I'm planning a trip to several countries in Southeast Asia sometime in the next few years; can't wait to see how that affects my hometown sensibility! 

I do love many Southern writers: Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Truman Capote, Ellen Gilchrist, Micheal McDowell, Robert McCammon, Joe Lansdale, Beth Massie...we are a bunch of sick fuckers, and that's good. 

HORROR: Anne Rice lives in New Orleans. Do you two socialize? 

PZB: I've never met her, and to tell the truth, I've barely read a word of her fiction. I started INTERVIEW but didn't get into it. I was so burnt out on vampires after writing LOST SOULS - not to mention doing the publicity, during which people would sidle up to me at cocktail parties and book signings to tell me how they actually were vampires - that I haven't wanted to read much about them since. 

I've read interviews with her that impressed me; I really do mean to read some of her fiction, but I think I'll start with something other than the Vampire Chronicles, maybe THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS. 

HORROR: You've been compared to Rice because you write about cutting-edge vampires. What do you think about that comparison? 

PZB: It's inevitable, but unfair to both of us. Rice has single-handedly changed the course of an entire subgenre of horror. That's wonderful, but it is not my goal. I don't want to make a career out of one kind of monster. I think the comparisons also arise because of the New Orleans setting and the homoerotic nature of our work, but as I understand it, she is pretty oblique about the actual sex between her characters. I am anything but, much more so in my second novel, DRAWING BLOOD (not a vampire story), than even in LOST SOULS. And I think I've been hanging out in different parts of New Orleans than Anne has. 

HORROR: Do you think vampires really exist, and in what capacity (blood-drinking, sexual, psychic)? Have you met any? 

PZB: I'm not much of a cynic where the supernatural is concerned. Vampires aren't as high on my list of beliefs as, say, ghosts, but neither do I rule out their existence. There is more on heaven and earth... 

I've met a lot of people who liked to drink blood, but none whose metabolism required it. Sexual predators exist, certainly. But in the case of someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, I think it's much more interesting to explore how he as a human being came to do what he did, rather than write him off as some kind of unnatural monster. People love to call sexual perversion unnatural, conveniently ignoring the fact that we are nature, we define nature - so where did that particular bit of human nature come from? I have met people who seem to put an incredible psychic drain on me, not by anything they said or did, but just by their very nature - as if they were little vortices designed to feed on energy. Curiously, none of thems seemed to know they were doing it, and most would have been appalled at the idea. I knew a painter, very talented and one of the sweetest, goofiest, most generous people you could ever hope to meet, but I couldn't spend much time around her because she wore me out so! She didn't have that effect on everyone, though, so maybe it has to do with the chemistry between certain people. 

HORROR: Why do you write about vampires, and essentially gay ones at that? 

PZB: Let me make clear that I wrote about vampires - one book. There's no sequel in the works, nor will there ever be. I am still interested in the psychic soul-sucker type of vampire (like the twins in LOST SOULS or the boy in my story "His Mouth Will Taste Of Wormwood" from BORDERLANDS), but I've had my say on bloodsuckers, I suspect forever. 

I've oftened wondered why I chose to make my first novel a vampire story. I certainly don't regret it (except sometimes at those cocktail parties), but I was never especially fascinated with them before I started the book, though I liked them. I think it was because I was interested in and involved with the Gothic/deather subculture at the time - the music, the clothes and makeup, the affinity for graveyards, the bloodletting. That was what I wanted to write about, and vampires are an essential icon of that culture. Those kids are beautiful, alineated, at once craving wild experience and romanticizing death. Is it any wonder they identify with vampires? 

As for the homosexuality, most of my characters are gay by whatever combination of heredity and choice applies to real gay people, but the vampires in LOST SOULS are bisexual, at least somewhat out of necessity. Since vampire babies eat their way out of the womb, their aren't so many females around, and the remaining ones would tend to be squeamish about sex! When it comes to their relationship with humans, they pretty much employ the Frank Booth theory of sex: they'll fuck anything that moooves ! I just prefer to write about gay sex. 

HORROR: From your stories and your novel, it seems as if you feel a natural affinity for men. Why don't you work with more female characters? 

PZB: I adore men. I've always felt comfortable around them and enjoyed their company. I've said elsewhere that I am a gay man who happens to have been born in a female body this time around, and the longer I live in the French Quarter, the truer it becomes. There are many women I admire, respect, and love, but as a group they don't fascinate me the way men do. 

That said, I think writers need to challenge themselves, so at some point I suppose I will have to write about some more interesting and important female characters. There's a pretty cool one in DRAWING BLOOD, though the two main characters are both male. But right now it is a challenge to write the books and stories that are already in my head, and most of those involve men. 

HORROR: "A Taste of Blood and Altars," published in THE HORROR SHOW as a short story, turned out to be the prologue of LOST SOULS. 

PZB: LOST SOULS actually began life as a forty-page novella. I started it in the fall of 1987, which was also when the first "Rising Stars" issue of THE HORROR SHOW, in which I was featured, came out. Doug Winter contacted me afer reading my stories and interview to ask if I was working on a novel; he was acting at the time as some sort of consultant for Walker & Company. This is what ended my ill-starred college career. The novella obviously needed vast expansion - all the major characters of the book were already in it. So I quit school, got drunk with my friend and muse Micheal Spencer (to whom LOST SOULS is half dedicated) every day, and started writing a book. The prologue was the first thing I wrote after that, and from there it all fell into place. 

HORROR: Do you find wrting novels difficult? 

PZB: Of course. But I've never been one to avoid trouble. 

HORROR: Which form do you prefer: novel or short story? 

PZB: You know, I'm still making up my mind about that. The short story is my first love, the jewel I honed and faceted and cut my teeth on, and the self-contained resonance of the form appeals to me greatly. I have also said that in a story you can work with much more hideous, disagreeable characters than anyone would put up with for 500 pages, but my next book is going to be about the torrid love affair between two cannibalistic serial killers, so I guess that puts the notion to rest. But I love 'em, of course. 

There's something about a novel - about plunging into another universe and not coming out until it's good and done with you - that feels like going home. Sometimes it's like going home to the house of torture...but a novel is the form that when you have to go there, it has to take you in. 

And I sure as hell prefer making a living. It's hard to do that with short stories, unless you have the talent, drive, and resourcefulness of Harlan Ellison. 

HORROR: How do you write, spontaneously, from an outline, or a combo? 

PZB: With short stories I just go barreling on through; I never know how they will end until I get there. Often I play around with two or three different resolutions before hitting on one I like. 

With novels I have to be a little more organized. I often know some of what's going to happen, but not how I will get there. I never work from a coherent outline, but I keep a lot of notes. I had a series of Garbage Pail Kids notebooks for LOST SOULS; for DRAWING BLOOD, since the main character is an artist, I kept my notes in a big sketchbook; for this next book I have one of those black-and-white school things, a "Decomposition Book." 

I brainstorm for plot. If I'm stuck, I'll go sit in a bar or coffeehouse and scrawl questions to myself, then try to answer them; I'll interrogate my characters; if I'm in utter despair I'll go on a tearing drunk and wallow in self-pity until I get over it. 

Short story or novel, I always start with characters. Once I am able to know and trust them, it usually goes well. 

HORROR: Do you write what you like or write to market or both, and has that changed? 

PZB: "Write to market" is a term both loathsome to my ears and forgein to my brain. I'm happy to say that the editor of Abyss, Jeanne Cavelos, seems to agree with this; she is very smart and has a taste for the bizarre. People talk about the uneven quality of the line, but to me that only attests to its diversity: if everyone liked everything Abyss put out, then Abyss would be pretty fucking homogenous! Jeanne encourages us to hone our visions, to explore the things we love, loathe, and fear. 

I have written a lot of stories for theme anthologies over the past few years, and while these have helped me to come up with some cool ideas that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, I'd like to give the preconceived themes a rest. That's one thing I love about novels: they don't have to be about zombies, or have a dead baby in them, or take place in a haunted bus terminal, or...anything except what I want. After a while, theme anthologies start to deprive the writer of the necessary illusion that he is God. 

HORROR: You've said you've been writing since you were 12 years old. What happened to you during all those years, writing-wise? 

PZB: I've been submitting work for publication since I was 12. My first submission, a short story, was to REDBOOK. They rejected it, of course, but getting a real rejection slip from a New York editor was very exciting at 12! I've been writing as long as I can remember. Before I learned to type or scrawl, I would tell stories into a tape recorder. A certain tale I told at age 3, "The Bad Mouse," is gaining some notoriety in horror circles. 

Between 12 and 18, when I sold my first story to THE HORROR SHOW, I wrote and read, wrote and read, then wrote and read some more. I published my high school's first underground newspaper - style and content strongly influenced by Harlan Ellison's GLASS TEAT columns - I got branded a Commie and received death threats in my locker from Reagan youth. I attended a Young Writer's Workshop at the University of Virginia during the summer of 1985, the only writing class that has ever done me any good - though putting me in contact with other young, creative freaks was much more valuable than anything they could teach me about writing. I quit high school midway through my senior year, when they wouldn't let me spend my free period writing stories in the library. After that, I worked and wrote. This was when I publihed my earliest stories in THE HORROR SHOW, and when I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to have to make it as a writer because I wasn't fit to do anything else. I finally got my high school diploma at 20, at another school, not that it ever did me any good. 

HORROR: You read "The Bad Mouse" at the World Horror Convention. Tell us about it. 

PZB: I didn't read it, I played the actual tape I made when I was three. To read it aloud in my adult voice would be unbelievably cutesy, I think, though I can still speak with that crazed-helium Southern accent when I want to. "The Bad Mouse" is the tale of a Dahmeresque rodent who likes to play evil pranks, like gluing toys to the ceiling or mutilating, dismembering, and eating people (in detail: "He would eat their intestines, and he didn't mind, he would even eat the wets'n'dirties...") He is ultimately redeemed by his creativity, though. 

HORROR: Your bio says you've worked as a gourmet candy-maker, an artist's model, a cook, a mouse caretaker, and an exotic dancer. You also appeared with two eighteen-year-old boys in JOHN FIVE, a short erotic film by Athens, GA artist Jim Herbert [who has directed several videos for the band R.E.M.] What else have you been doing since you hit puberty? 

PZB: Reading horror - that's the age at which I discovered both King and Bradbury. Drawing - another thing I've been doing all my life, though as an artist I'm one hell of a doodler. Enjoying torrid queer fantasies, and taking shit for it from homophobes. Playing with my cats. Courting disaster. 

HORROR: What's an average 24 hours like in the Poppy Z. Brite day? 

PZB: Mail, lots of coffee, lots of reading, occassional forays into the French Quarter, too many long-distance phone calls, more caffeine in any palatable form. The ideal day involves Korean food. I get most of my work done between ten at night and four in the morning. 

HORROR: What is it about writing that you like? 

PZB: The fact that I can make a living hanging out with my imaginary friends. Before I was making a living at it, I just loved hanging out with them. They are necessary to my sanity, such as it is. The versatility and maleability of the English language. The color and texture of words. The comfort of always having another world to go to. The fringe benefits, like getting to meet interesting people and have them want to meet me as well. 

HORROR: What do you dislike? 

PZB: Deadlines. Bad reviews from critics who just didn't get the fuckin' point... I don't mind so much if someone understood my work and just didn't like it, but when they don't even appear to try , it gets on my nerves. Like a certain review of LOST SOULS in the NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION; the reviewer quoted out of context a passage about a character who appears on one page of the book , some useless little friend of Nothing's who starved herself for a week because she didn't get the front-row Cure tickets she wanted, and used that as representative of all the other characters in the book. "How are we to take these characters seriously when they behave this way?" Jesus, fanboy, if you don't have a sense of humor, at least give me credit for one! Ahem. End of rant. Also, deadlines. 

HORROR: What do you see as your strengths and weaknesses as a writer? 

PZB: Strengths: awe-struck adoration for the English language, and the ability to use it well. A good ear; and eye and nose for sensory detail. Male characters. Interesting life experiences. Single-mindedness and drive. The ability to get it right the first time. Constant reader. The Power Of Slack. 

Weaknesses: Laziness. Female characters. Dialogue sometimes - it is one of the hardest parts of writing for me. The tendency to think that I've gotten it right the first time even when I haven't. 

HORROR: Do you associate yourself with the splatter pack? For example, Skipp, Spector, Schow, Nancy Collins? 

PZB: Not except for hanging out with some of them sometimes. I like a lot of their works, but I'm not a part of any "movement." Neither are those writers, really - their work is wildly diverse in style and subject matter, and "splatterpunk" is just a term that began as a joke and stuck. It is my experience that writers only form movements when they are drunk, and always regret it later. 

HORROR: What kind of help did you have along the way? 

PZB: My mom, particularly, always encouraged me to do the things I loved and was good at; she also taught me to read at age three, which is the best gift anyone has given me. The most romantic gift was from my boyfriend, Chris - a pound of chocolate from the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory in Milwaukee, where Jeffrey Dahmer worked. My dad always told me that my chances of making a living writing were equivalent to winning the lottery, and gave me horrible statistics like only one in every 500,000 aspiring writers ever gets published. All this encouraged me as well, since I knew I could be that one. I like having something to prove; it motivates me. 

David Silva bought and published my first several stories. Kathyrn Ptacek bought a story from me in 1989 for WOMEN OF DARKNESS 2 - this was my first anthology sale, closely followed by a sale to Tom Monteleone for the first BORDERLANDS anthology. Doug Winter booted my ass into writing a novel. Fellow writer Brian Hodge always gave me encouragement and honest advice, as well as bringing LOST SOULS to the attention on Jeanne Cavelos at Abyss. 

HORROR: What kind of discouragement did you face? 

PZB: Well, there were certainly some lean years. But once you've made up your mind to write for the long haul, you'd better take that for granted. I honestly can't say anyone or anything ever DISCOURAGED me - or if they did, I managed to ignore it sufficiently that I must have forgotten. 

HORROR: What kept you slugging when you could have given up? 

PZB: I knew I wasn't fit for anything else (other than writing). And I never really felt I had the option of giving up. If I stopped writing, I wouldn't even have to kill myself - my characters would do it for me. They are a very demanding lot. 

HORROR: Now that your career is sky-rocketing, do you feel an urge to help other writers get started? 

PZB: Sure, I want to pay back some of the good karma I've received. If I admire someone's work, I will do whatever I can to help them. I've just written my first blurb for Robert Devereaux's novel DEADWEIGHT, which Abyss will publish in 1994. People will call this incestuous, I'm sure, but I loved Robert's work long before Abyss bought his novel...since I heard him read at the 1991 World Horror Convention, to be exact. I'm collaborating on a story with Christa Faust, one of the most exciting young writers I know - as of this interview she has just sold her first two stories to BOOK OF THE DEAD 3 and SPLATTERPUNKS 2, and she's working on a novel called CONTROL FREAK. 

HORROR: Your use of words is excellent, adding elegance to what is often harsh subject matter. Do you have to work hard at choosing words? 

PZB: I have to work hard at making anything happen. I could easily sit around reading books, magazines, and comics all day and night, and never get anything done. But once I get going, word choice is no harder than any other part of writing - probably easier than most. I look for strange juxtapositions of image, words that look or sound wonderful together, unusual metaphors. When I find a writer whose use of language I admire, I read their work over and over. Sometimes I read the dictionary. I love to describe things, especially beautiful things, disgusting things, or any combination of the two. 

HORROR: Making the leap from short story to novelist isn't easy. How did you do it? 

PZB: I was attacked by a bunch of characters who refused to fit into a short story! The process was scary at first - I likened it at the time to stepping off the edge of the pool into the deep end, feeling the water close over your head and the bubbles rising around you, and knowing that the only way you're going to get back to the surface is to swim . But I took it scene by scene, chapter by chapter, and after a while it started to look like a book. 

HORROR: Who helped in that process? 

PZB: Michael Spencer and Monica Kendrick, to whom LOST SOULS is dedicated. As I said, Michael was my drinking buddy and muse, he was working on a novel at the time too which, when he finally finishes the damn thing and gets it published, will blow Pynchon out of the water and make Joyce uneasy in his grave. We were both living in Chapel Hill, NC at the time, and we would get together in my room, drink Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill Wine or whatever other noxious alcoholic substance we could get our hands on, smoke pot and unfiltered cigarettes, and read our new scenes to each other. It was about the most fun I've ever had in my life. Monica is an equally amazing writer. She and I have never lived in the same city, but her friendship and work have always inspired me. Brian Hodge read much of the rough manuscipt in installments and helped me believe that I could keep doing it. And my mom gave me food and shelter at a time when I would absolutely have been on the street otherwise. For an exhaustive list on conspirators, see the acknowledgements page. 

HORROR: How did it come about that Dan Simmons and Harlan Ellison recommended you to Richard Curtis, your agent? 

PZB: I was a guest at I-Con in Long Island in 1991. I met Harlan there. He's been one of my major idols since I was 14 or so, and when I walked into a party at the hotel, he turned around, pointed at me across a crowded room, and yelled, "YOU'RE POPPY Z. BRITE! I'VE BEEN WANTING TO MEET YOU!! I LOVE YOUR STUFF!!!" I managed to stay on my feet, but only just. Then Dan came to my reading of "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" from STILL DEAD: BOOK OF THE DEAD 2. I was so nervous about having him read the story, because it would never have been written if I had not read his novel SONG OF KALI, which is one of my five favorite horror novels of all time, along with Shirley Jackson's WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, Peter Straub's SHADOWLAND, Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and Stephen King's THE SHINING. But Dan came up to me after the reading, swept me up in a giant bear hug, and told me anything I ever wanted from him was mine. 

I was staying in the city later that week, and since Dan, Harlan, and Ed Bryant had all recommended me to Richard Curtis within days of each other, he called me at Linda Marotta's apartment and took me to lunch at an Indian restaurant, where I gave him the manuscript of LOST SOULS, which was already under consideration at Abyss. The rest is history. 

HORROR: Rumors fly about the huge advance you got as a first-time novelist, and your three-book deal. What was your advance and how did that come about? 

PZB: When the amount of my advance for LOST SOULS was published in LOCUS ($24,000), I understand there were authors calling Jeanne Cavelos to ask why they didn't get that much too . Dell was annoyed with me and Richard Curtis, even though neither of us had leaked the amount. And that was before Delacorte decided to do the book in hardcover, so the money has gone up quite a bit since then. I won't quote exact figures - I don't need that kind of trouble. But the advance I received was certainly not an outrageous sum for three hardcover novels and the paperback rights as well. For at least five years of the best work I can do, I hardly think six figures are unwarranted. 

People often act as if I am some flash-in-the-pan young upstart who has taken the scene by storm out of nowhere. But I put in my years of sweat and rejection; I just got started earlier than most. So don't blame me if you didn't always know what you wanted: I did , and I work hard to be as good at it as I can, and I expect to be paid well for that. As for how my book deal came about, what can I say? I wrote a good first novel and I have a great agent. 

HORROR: How many publishers saw LOST SOULS before it hit Dell? 

PZB: Just Walker and Company, for whom Doug Winter originally contacted me. Through no fault of Doug's, it sat on their shelf for a year until they decided they weren't going to do the hardcover line they'd planned. Brian Hodge offered to show it to Jeanne Cavelos, who had just bought his third novel. 

After I hooked up with Richard Curtis, Dell made an offer and Richard asked me if I wanted to take it or let the book be auctioned. We decided to go for the big time, and Ricahrd conducted an auction with Dell's bid as the floor and Dell having the right to top the highest bid by 10% if they so wished. And that's what happened. A few months later they decided to make LOST SOULS the first Abyss hardcover, and that's when I signed the three-book contract. 

HORROR: How did Jeanne Cavelos respond to it intially? 

PZB: She made a number of helpful suggestions, particularly about pacing, and the history of the characters. This was the initial draft. I had just completed a rewrite when Richard Curtis took me on. After Abyss bought the book, I did another major revision. 

HORROR: What's it been like working with Jeanne? 

PZB: Abyss provides an enviroment in which I know I can do anything I want as long as it's good work. Jeanne has been pretty much my ideal editor. I trust her to understand what I'm doing and my methods of doing it, to care about my characters, and to let me know when she thinks something doesn't make sense or just plain sucks. She appreciates the aesthetics of the cute boy as much as I do, and she's a great dinner date! 

HORROR: How has the Dell publicity machine worked for you, or have you found you had to do a lot of the promo for yourself? 

PZB: Abyss has put a great deal of money and effort into publicizing LOST SOULS. It helps that I like doing promotion, readings and signings and conventions and interviews, but they set up a lot of things for me. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Evan Boostyn at Dell Publicity. If I know I'm going to a particular city, I just tell Evan a few weeks in advance and he can usually arrange a signing or two for me. Most of my own publicity efforts have been in the underground and gay markets, and these pay off too - zines are contacting me for interviews and reviewing my books, gay and fringe-culture people are buying my stuff and asking specialty bookstores to carry it. Word of mouth is some of the most valuable publicity you can get. 

HORROR: Are you happy with the cover? 

PZB: Yes, I love it. How could I not love having Robert Smith on the cover of my first book? The artist is Miran Kim, and her work also appears as an inset on the cover of DRAWING BLOOD. 

HORROR: There have been some good and bad reviews of LOST SOULS. Some of the small press dislikes the book while the mainstream is, for the most part, in love with it. Does this surprise you? 

PZB: Some of the small press has its head so far up its ass that the principal parties are probably seeing Cthulhu in their own intestinal polyps. Not to indulge in sour grapes, but there are certain people from whom I don't expect good reviews, from whom I don't even particularly want good reviews, people whose opinions my life is way too short to worry about. 

Put it this way: the mainstream can do a hell of a lot more for a writer than the small press can, so getting a good review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY kind of cancels out the sniping reviews from TENTACLES OF YENTACLE or BLEEDING STUMP QUARTERLY or whatever. I don't mean to slag the small press; it's where I got my start, and it's a valuable forum for beginning and emerging writers. But I hardly require its approval. And I am all for mainstream popularity - more minds to rape. 

HORROR: Hve you found that some people are jealous and/or resentful of your success? 

PZB: Some people are always going to be jealous, and there isn't a goddamn thing I can do about it. I met a sf/horror writer in Georgia whose book I'd liked; I told him so; he was nice enough to my face. It later got back to me from three or four different directions that he was telling people I got a book contract by screwing a major editor, and not even my editor - not even a Dell editor! So if you're reading this, you lousy cretin-for-hire, I've got your number. 

I take shit for all kinds of reasons - because I'm too young; I don't deserve success if they haven't gotten it. And since I am twenty-six and female, if I do have success I must have fucked for it. Because I write about homosexuals and freaks and people wh take drugs. Because my characters apparently bother some people so much that they would cross the street to avoid them. Because I got more money than someone else. Because some people, believe it or not, genuinely hate my writing! But I eat their hate like love. 

HORROR: How was it writing the second book, DRAWING BLOOD, as compared with writing LOST SOULS? 

PZB: It was harder, because the ideas and themes of it were coming from a completely different place in my mind, my heart. LOST SOULS was a big, sprawling carnival show of a book. DRAWING BLOOD is more insular, more claustrophobic, and gets way darker. It's about family and art and the terror of falling in love. Also, with LOST SOULS, I didn't even know if I could write a novel. This time, I knew I had to.And I had a lot less time to do it. I refused o rus, I missed my deadline, but I also did some very intense periods of writing - like weeks of twenty-hour stretches. It was horrible and great fun at the same time. Can't wait to do it again. 

HORROR: Do you see changes in your writing between books one and two? 

PZB: I don't know if the style is quite as florid this time. I'll be getting back to that in my third book - there's a character who threatens to make Arkady Raventon of LOST SOULS look taciturn. The sex is more explicit, but also much more personal, and takes place almost entirely between the two main characters - everyone isn't just fucking all over the place. I once made a circle of all the characters in LOST SOULS, drawing lines between the ones who had fucked, and it looked like one of those webs spiders do on acid. The plot is less convergent, more linear, or maybe onion-like. There's less drinking and more drugs. And I'm sure DRAWING BLOOD reflects my outlook as an unborn-again Subgenius, which is that the world absolutely does owe you a living if only you can figure out how to endorse the check. 

HORROR: Tell us about DRAWING BLOOD. 

PZB: DRAWING BLOOD will be released in hardcover in November '93, right after LOST SOULS comes out in paperback in October. They'll both be in the stores by Halloween, and Dell is sending me on a five-city reading and signing tour with fellow Abyss author Melanie Tem. It is a haunted-house love story also involving underground comics and computer hackers. But is does take place almost entirely in Missing Mile, although Steve and ghost of Lost Souls aren't there -- it's the summer after and they have gone on an extended road trip and band tour; which will provide plenty more tales -- Steve and Ghost are continuing characters of mine. There are two stories about then in Swamp Foetus. We see more of the other characters from the town, like Kinsey Hummingbird who owns the Sacred Yew nightclub and Terry who has the record store. But the main characters are all new. 

HORROR: Are you nervous about your second book? 

PZB: I'm nervous, sure, but in a way I like. It's always a wild time. 

HORROR: What's your third novel about? 

PZB: The torrid affair between two cannibalistic serial killers, and alcoholic, opium-addicted, HIV-positive New Orleans radio talk show host who advocates killing all breeders, the aesthetics of putrefaction (I stole the last lovely phrase from Darrell Schweitzer, one of whose characters wrote a book by that title). I don't know what else. We will be leaving Missing Mile for this one -- I think it will be set largely in the French Quarter -- but we will be back. 

HORROR: Play psychologist for a moment. Poppy Z. Brite writes a graphic horror novel with hard-edged characters that some critics have called callous and amoral, even for vampires. They are definitely weird, freaky, outside the mainstream. Why do you think she focuses on characters like this? 

PZB: No offense to the esteemed doctor, but this approach conveniently ignores characters like Ghost, his grandmother -- who is dead before the book begins but an important presence nonetheless --, and even Nothing, if you look about a millimeter past his bad-kid surface. All the characters aren't mean and nasty. I focus on characters outside the mainstream because I am drawing on the experiences I've had, the people I've known, and the things that intrigue me. Also, I think my subject matter holds a dread fascination even for the relatively conservative reader -- my friend David says I make them look under a rock. If so, it's good for them. 

HORROR: Continuing with the psychologist's role, Brite's novel has a character -- Nothing -- who is looking for his identity and his real parent. What does this say about the author? 

PZB: Well, I was lonely throughout junior high and high school because I was too weird to have many friends. When I finally met other people in the same situation, they became like an extended family to me. I never felt that I wasn't my parents' child -- I am definitely the spawn of Connie and Bob. But for Nothing I did draw on much of my teenage angst, depression, and terror that I was the only one who ever felt this way.

HORROR: Back to being yourself, you once said that you have no morals but are extremely ethical. What did you mean? 

PZB: That's another "borrowed" phrase, from Harlan Ellison this time. I meant that I don't do things I believe are wrong but I don't give a flying fuck if anyone else believes what I do is wrong. 

HORROR: What life experiences have you had that helped you write Lost Souls, particularly the more gritty bits? 

PZB: I've been an observer of and a participant in the Gothic/deather subculture, and an avid lover of the music. I've drunk noxious combinations of liquor. I've tried all the drugs I could get my hands on -- liking some better than others, of course. I've had strange sex. I've drunk my own blood and that of other people. I've done 'the club thang.' I've had horrible relationships. I've gotten in trouble in the French Quarter. I regret to say, however, that I have never given a blowjob to an albino Holy Roller in a Lincoln Continental. 

HORROR: What are some of the experiences, positive and/or negative, that have helped form the person you are? 

PZB: It's a hard question to answer specifically, because as a writer you have to hold onto all your experiences; you never know what will poop up ten years later and demand to be written about. My early years in New Orleans, and my visits with my father to French Quarter voodoo shops as a tiny child; seeing Vietnam war broadcasts at three; trying to read The Bell Jar at five, and a museum show I saw around that same time of sculptures in precious metals and jewels by Dali -- a grisly confection of gold, rubies, and diamonds called "The Bleeding Heart" made a huge impression on me -- my parents' divorce, my trip to Disneyworld, particularly the Haunted Castle; the murder of John Lennon; seeing King Crimson in concert in 1984; being a teenager during the Reagan years and spending that time pretty sure I would die in a nuclear war; the time at 19 when I decided I was crazy and managed to get on antidepressants and Lithium for several months, which was the only thing that ever made me nearly stop writing; my dissolute habits and wicked ways; the books I've read; the music I've listened to; the people I've loved and hated...there is a totally random selection. 

HORROR: In terms of the publishing biz, does the cream rise to the top or are there other factors involved in building a career? 

PZB: Luck never hurts, and it is nice to have the right people interested in you. But it's a lot harder to get the right people interested in you if you lack talent and drive. And it's not as if the work gets any easier once you've made a sweet book deal. Cream doesn't have to struggle to rise to the top of a bottle of milk. As a successful writer, you have to be willing to work real hard. You have to want it so bad. The publishing business is just that, a business -- more honorable than most, maybe, because some of its product has intellectual, emotional, and spiritual value. But it exists to make money. They're not going to give you a huge advance for your book, no matter how beautiful and noble and true it may be, if they don't think they can make money off it. And why should they? They're running a business. 

That said, I think individual editors are often willing to take chances on work they believe in, even if it is bizarre or radical or not "written to market." They will go to bat for it and convince the publicity machine to get rolling behind it. The best editors can take work they love and make it turn a profit. If they're smart, they know they have to do this, rather than just looking for the next book they can slap a hologram cover on and compare to King. 

HORROR: Many writers have to work hard not to get caught in the publishing machine so they can protect their creativity. How do you keep yourself sane in the midst of all the hype? 

PZB: I don't see it as a machine so much as, like I said, a business. They are in business for themselves. If you write for a living, you are in business for yourself, and you'd better be able to handle that as well as your writing. I don't have much patience with writers who feel that doing business and promotion will somehow sully their precious creativity. Get over it, do the shit you have to do to sell your work, and get back to writing; otherwise you might have to get a day job, which is a lot more time-consuming and deadening to the soul than a few book signings could ever be. 

If you are such a fragile hothouse orchid that you genuinely cannot deal with the business end of things, a;; I can say is you better have a damn good agent who is willing to handle everything for you, thus protecting you from all those evil, scary people in New York who might want to buy you lunch or something. 

To be honest, it would be driving me insane if I hadn't had a ton of hype surrounding me by the time I was 26 years old. This was all part of the plan. I have an unlisted phone number and I don't give my address out all over the place, but that's about as far as it goes. Anyone who wants to get in touch with me probably can. If I'm in the middle of a book, it might take me a while to answer. My friends -- those who stay my friend -- know better than to make demands on my time when I am working. And the ones who live near me know what horrors await them if they come over without calling. 

HORROR: Are you political? Religious? 

PZB: I'm slightly political, I suppose, mostly about gay and pro-choice issues. The first part of "Lagniappe, or The Thirteenth Beignet," the introduction I wrote for Swamp Foetus is an extrapolation of what might happen in the Louisiana swamps if Operation Rescue had things as they want them. As for religion, I was raised nothing, and now I am a god Subgenius and a worshipper of the goddess Kali. 

HORROR: So you're still connected with the Church of the Subgenius. Still a high priestess? 

PZB: You don't get UN-connected with the Church of the Subgenius. You may drift away, but the umbilicus of "Bob" is still firmly attached to you foetal soul, and he can reel you in any time he damn well wants to. 

But I love "Bob" as much as ever. I'm still high and I still preach, so I guess I'm still a high priestess. Some think the Church is joke. And it may be, but it's the Greatest Joke Ever Told! It is the only church that promises Eternal Salvation or triple your money back! It spawned St. Janor Hypercleets, something more hideously awesome than all the other major religions put together could manage! It also throws great parties. Too much is always better than not enough. 

The Church of the Subgenius urges you to praise J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, the pipe-smokin' dude with the inane but somehow knowing grin. Not to worship "Bob" -- he is not a deity, though he may be a supernatural being -- but to make your liaison with the maligned alien god Jehovah-1 from Planet X -- and to kill him every day of your life. In return, "Bob" offers you the opportunity for unlimited Slack. Slack, as we've already learned, is your own method of endorsing the big fat check of life.. Any one who is still interested may send $1 -- for an amazing pamphlet -- or $20* -- for a lifetime membership, a subscription to the highly offensive Stark Fist newsletter, and a certificate excusing you from all sins. P.O. Box 140306, Dallas TX 75214. 

With this religion you also get the Elder gods that Lovecraft wrote of, and they are a much more fun-loving bunch than certain dry circles of horror criticism would have you think. Now I ask you, why would I not be involved? 

HORROR: Are you involved in a serious relationship and if so, what does you significant other think of your burst onto the publishing scene? 

PZB: Yes, I've been with Christopher DeBarr, chef, political activist, jazz collector, and sometime poet for four years now. Neither of us care about getting married -- maybe if they ditched the arbitrary gender requirements, though I still can't see why we'd bother -- but we seem to be together for the long haul. 

Every time I date another writer, I swear I'll never do it again. Chris is exempt from this because the stuff he writes is so different from anything I've done or wanted to do, and because he has a very high tolerance for my work. I cured one ex-boyfriend of writing fiction entirely! But Chris is able to make suggestions I often use, to put up with things like Dahmer police photos and big books of suppurating wounds in full, glistening color piled in great stacks around the house. He is easily grossed out, though, and I like that -- living with someone who had my love for the disgusting would be no fun. I enjoy showing him a picture of a colostomy opening or a mutilated corpse and watching him go, "Ewww!!!

As for my success, he has enjoyed both the actuality of seeing me do what I want to do, and the fringe benefits of being my boyfriend -- like going to Negril, Jamaica for his birthday, or getting to talk with Peter Straub about jazz. 

HORROR: What do you do for fun? 

PZB: Read. travel. Eat in exotic restaurants with my boyfriend. See my friends and family. Alter my body chemistry. Learn about New Orleans -- no matter how long you live there, there's always something new to explore. I like to go to the zoo and the art museum. I'm a sucker for museums, especially weird, cheesy ones like Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Watch movies. Cook Indian food. Wander the French Quarter, hit Cafe du Monde, then stare out at the Mississippi river for a while. 

HORROR: What are you reading at the moment for pleasure? 

PZB: I'm halfway through Tim Cahill's Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, a true account of his dangerous adventures in various parts of the world. I like to read travel narratives, especially ones about Southeast Asia. Just reread J. P. Sartre's Nausea but I can't say it was a particularly pleasurable experience, though i have a grudging admiration for his sheer fucked-upedness. Recently read Kathe Koja's Skin, the second Abyss hardcover, and a heartwrenching, beautifully written festival of pain is was. I spent the entire second half of the book really worried about what was going to happen to these characters, but having no idea what it would be -- that's rare for a horror novel. And Tim and Pete by James Robert Baker, a sort of gay roman noir about AIDS terrorism, inflammatory art, and the arid carnival of L.A. Great characters, brilliant ideas. The new issue of Wired magazine. A bunch of underground comix -- Chester Brown's Yummy Fur, Peter Bagge's Hate, and some vintage Crumb. Next on my list are Blackburn by Bradley Denton and Closer by Dennis Cooper. I also read a lot of true-crime books about serial killers. 

HORROR: What music are you listening to? 

PZB: At this very second I'm listening to the Cure's 1984 album The Top. I just got a bunch of old Cure on CD and it is great to hear them again. I'm also listening to Tom Waits, KISS, Frank Sinatra, Nine Inch Nails, Sarah Vaughan, Skinny Puppy, Robyn Hitchcock, and R.E.M. This is all for writing, though. I listen to music constantly when I'm writing, so much so that I don't usually want to hear it any other time. (This could be because when I'm not writing I'm usually reading, and I can't stand music when I'm reading.) 

HORROR: How does music help with your writing? 

PZB: It provides a soundtrack. I listen to different music according to what kind of scene I'm writing, with what characters. I don't get as many ideas directly from music as I used to, but I still get a lot. And since many of my characters are musicians, I have to know what all their music sounds like, too. There's a great unsigned rock band out of Athens, Georgia, the Go Figures, who do a "Lost Souls" song in their set. David Ferguson, the lead singer, wrote the song -- but he swears he was channeling Ghost and he becomes Ghost when he sings it. 

HORROR: Do you have plans to write outside the horror genre? 

PZB: For now, I feel I can do pretty much anything I want within the horror genre -- there are no limits. I'm happy with my publisher and I have much agony yet to plumb. Joy too. One thing I could see doing would be some non-horror stories about Steve and Ghost. I know almost everything that ever happens to them, and not all of it is horrible. The only non-horror thing I've ever published was an interview with the band Gene Loves Jezabel in a 1986 issue of the Florida music zine Altenative Rhythms. Now there's an obscure collector's item for someone to unearth. 

HORROR: Because you began so young, from where you stand at the moment, do you see yourself still writing 10 years from now? Twenty-five? 

PZB: Oh yes. I've always done it. I'll do it until I'm dead. In twenty-five years I'll only be fifty-one, which is young for a writer! Eventually I will be a mean, scary old lady in a little cottage in the French Quarter, attended by Siamese cats and cute young artboys (and their boyfriends, of course), surrounded by millions upon millions of books. 

HORROR: What are your plans for the next year? 

PZB: Writing the third novel. Traveling and attending a few conventions to promote the first two this fall. Further polishing up my Asian itinerary, and maybe sneaking off to Jamaica again if possible. Enjoying my hometown...I haven't been to a Mardi Gras since I was six years old! 

HORROR: If you had one piece of advice to offer writers trying to break in, what would it be? 

PZB: Do the work you must do, put yourself in situations of potential luck, and read, read, read. And send your twenty bucks* to the Church of the Subgenius...it will be returned to you at least a thousandfold.